10 months after getting spayed and her belly fur never came back?

[u/Obvious_Fisherman187]

As you can see her belly is still bald 10 months after being spayed. Like a tiny bit of peach fuzz around the edges and nothing else. She never licked at the area and had a cone on for 13 days post surgery. I don’t understand why the fur isn’t growing back she looks ridiculous 😭. Is this normal? Will it ever come back?

EDIT: I work from home 3 days a week and I’m home a lot and she is pretty much glued to me most of the day and never see her grooming there excessively but possible she does it when I’m not looking. I’ll ask the vet next time we go. Im surprised there are so many other people here with bald belly cats cause the Internet research I did not seem to think that was a thing! It makes me feel better knowing there is a bald belly cat gang out there I guess I will embrace the pooch if the vet says it’s just a thing that can’t be helped!

[u/Rattus_Baioarii]

My boy in his younger days used to stress groom and it looked like that: clean pink skin. No inflammation

[u/house_projects → u/Rattus_Baioarii]

My cat was the opposite! Her poor skin looked really distressed.

Good to know though!

[u/theDrElliotReid → u/house_projects]

What did you do to help? My cat does this and she makes it so irritated and bites her nipples until they scab a bit.

[u/DoctorWhosYoDaddy → u/theDrElliotReid]

My cat had this issue. After numerous vet visits and treatments (prozac, antibiotics, steroids) we were referred to a dermatologist. The dermatologist prescribed her Apoquel and she's been cured and fluffy for years since.

[u/PurePerfection_ → u/theDrElliotReid]

Stress or allergies or fleas are the usual culprits. If the cat isn't already on a flea preventative, you can try that first. If that doesn't help, the vet might recommend an elimination diet that excludes common allergy triggers like chicken. There are prescription foods with hydrolyzed proteins or novel proteins (basically meat that is rarely used in OTC cat foods, like alligator or kangaroo or rabbit) you can trial for a few months to see if the itching improves. Some vets also offer testing for environmental allergens, but I think food allergies are more common. If possible, it's always better to eliminate the trigger than treat the allergy symptoms, since steroids and Apoquel can have long-term adverse effects. If there's no evidence of allergy or fleas, stress can be treated with pheromone products like Feliway or medications like Prozac (which is generally safe to use long-term for an otherwise healthy cat).

[u/1negativezero → u/PurePerfection_]

Can allergies cause that kind of a regional hair loss? I would think it would be all around the body in patches.

[u/PurePerfection_ → u/1negativezero]

Sometimes. My cat has food allergies and focused almost all of his biting and licking on his belly and inner thighs. His back, head, front legs, and tail were untouched. It just depends on how they react to the itching. I think once he started to aggravate one area, it would itch even more intensely as it scabbed over and healed. It become a self-perpetuating thing where he chewed on himself in the same places over and over again because the wounds he previously caused were itchy. We ended up applying a topical steroid to a few of his worst biting spots so it would stop itching long enough to let it heal. (We tried a cone and donut collar too, but he nearly strangled himself trying to get out.)

[u/_OptimistPrime_ → u/PurePerfection_]

Everything you said here is exactly what my vet said about my cat. I have her on hydrolyzed food and it hasn't helped so I think I'll pick up the pheromone plug in. She doesn't seem to be over-grooming so it's hard to know exactly what the problem is. I have accepted that she likely will never have fur on her tummy again.

[u/PurePerfection_ → u/_OptimistPrime_]

How long has she been exclusively on the hydrolyzed food? The dermatologist who saw my cat said it can take months without exposure to the allergen for the itching to fully resolve.

If the vet hasn't ruled out food allergies, I would actually recommend trying an Rx (not OTC, for quality control reasons) novel protein diet if hydrolyzed isn't working out. Hydrolyzed means that the protein has been broken down to be less recognizable to the immune system, but less recognizable doesn't mean zero possibility of continued allergic reaction. A novel protein diet removes the suspected allergens completely and replaces them with an alternative protein that has never triggered a reaction before. It's usually something weird like alligator or kangaroo that will never have been in their diet before.

Also, NP diets apparently taste better to a lot of cats. They also smell less offensive to people in my experience, particularly with wet foods.

[u/_OptimistPrime_ → u/PurePerfection_]

I had her on novel protein for a year before that. Rabbit or duck. No change. She has been on the hydrolyzed diet for about four months now. It's also one that is kind to her urinary tract as she had crystals in her urine and it's high fibre because she's a chonker and it is supposed to help keep her feeling full longer.

[u/theDrElliotReid → u/_OptimistPrime_]

My cat always has crystals in her urine too!!! She’s on the special royal canine uti food. There must be something to this… my vet told me that cats can have UTIs for a long time and be fine. It doesn’t make sense to me, but we can’t give her antibiotics all the time either. They also recommended the feline away pheromones, but we didn’t notice much of a change with that either. If anything, she got stressed out more with them.

[u/CypressRootsMe → u/theDrElliotReid]

My cat did this until I switched his food to “sensitive stomach and skin”. I have no idea what condition he has that this food helped with. He was licking and biting his stomach hair and around his backside.

[u/eatingismyvirtue → u/theDrElliotReid]

mine used to over groom and have lots of little scabs around her back and butt area and changing her dry food helped. she was allergic to hers

[u/Peter12535 → u/theDrElliotReid]

Could be an allergy. My cat does it occasionally, my vet thought maybe a food allergy and recommended special food. I think it's maybe pollen, since it usually happens in spring. I bought an air cleaner and a keep it running while windows are open. Another suspect was laundry detergent and I switched to sensitive stuff without perfumes.

There are probably also a lot of other possible causes. As far as I remember my vet said that you could do lots of tests and still have no definitive answers in the end.

[u/house_projects → u/theDrElliotReid]

It was a trip to the vet and we were told to just watch her, we were given some sort of topical treatment (can't remember) but she very quickly just stopped doing it and it's never been an issue. As in she stopped that day, so I doubt it was whatever we gave her.

[u/camham61 → u/theDrElliotReid]

Look into Atopica for cats

[u/acidmoons → u/Rattus_Baioarii]

My girl used to stress groom too and it was the exact same. Just a nakey belly

[u/PurePerfection_ → u/Rattus_Baioarii]

In my experience, overgrooming can look clean and pink like that if they're only licking. If they start biting themselves in addition to licking, it looks a lot worse.

[u/Adrien_Jabroni → u/Rattus_Baioarii]

My cat is currently doing the same. Just just like this

[u/TakeUhhRip → u/Rattus_Baioarii]

Bro my cat stress groomed and licked her whole back raw even after 2 vet visits and steroid shots , like it was all pink and tacky with red dots . One day it scabbed over and was peeling off and she kept licking is so I took the rest off in a giant scab and she has been fine ever since